5 Compelling Reasons to Get a Tutor

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College life is tough. There is no denying that. One day you may be threatening to drop out and the next you are marveling at a good grade on a tough exam. When it comes to navigating the rollercoaster of university, having a tutor by your side can be a lifesaver. 

This article presents five compelling reasons why having a tutor significantly benefits you as a college student.

Personalized Attention 

AKA someone who knows the mud you are trudging through. In a bustling classroom with peers, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. You may have a lecture with hundreds of students. It is by no means easy to get any one-on-one attention from the professor or teacher assistants. With a tutor, you can get that attention. 

A tutor tailors their teaching approach to your specific learning style and addresses any individual challenges or questions you may have. We are pretty confident it is far less intimidating to ask a “stupid” question to one person than in front of your entire class. 

This personalized attention fosters a greater understanding of the material and allows for you to fill in any gaps in your grasp of complex concepts. 

Improved Grades

Struggling to achieve the grades you desire? A tutor can be your academic ally. Music to your ears, eh? Tutors are an avenue to improve academic performance and higher grades. It is that simple. A study by San Bernardino Valley College revealed that students who receive extra academic help performed, on average, 13% better. 

Better Study Habits and Time Management 

Effective studying goes beyond merely memorizing facts. A tutor can impart invaluable study strategies and techniques that can revolutionize your approach to learning. 

They can guide you in developing efficient study habits, such as organizing study materials, creating comprehensive study plans, and utilizing time management skills. These essential skills not only benefit you during your college journey but also lay a solid foundation for lifelong learning and success.

Confidence Boost 

Confidence plays a pivotal role in achieving academic success. There is a direct link between self-esteem and academic achievement. Collaborating with a tutor can instill a sense of confidence in your abilities. As you gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter and witness your progress, your self-assurance naturally grows. 

Tutors can offer constructive feedback, highlight your strengths, and help you overcome academic obstacles. Get ready to feel boosted! A person cheerleader empowering you to tackle challenges head-on.

Career Preparation 

Beyond immediate academic benefits, tutoring can also contribute to your long-term career prospects. By leveraging the expertise of a tutor, you can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to excel in your future profession.

Seeking the assistance of a tutor can be a transformative decision for any college student. The personalized attention, improved grades, refined study habits, boosted confidence, and career preparation that come with tutoring are invaluable assets throughout your educational journey and beyond. Embrace the benefits of having a tutor and unlock your full potential as a college student.
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5 Helpful Tips for Work-School Balance

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Balancing the demands of work and school can be a daunting task, but with the right strategies in place, it is possible to maintain a healthy equilibrium.

Whether you’re part of the 8 million students juggling both responsibilities or simply seeking advice on managing these aspects of your life, this article will provide you with five valuable tips to help you navigate the challenge.

Prioritize Your Responsibilities

Creating a prioritized to-do list is a great tool for managing work-school balance. Start by assessing the importance and urgency of each task. Give priority to your academic commitments. Arguably, as a college student, investing in your education is of more significance. By completing your schoolwork first, you’ll have a clearer mind to focus on your job responsibilities.

Create a Schedule

Developing a well-structured weekly schedule is crucial to staying organized and on track. Take into account your work hours, class times, study sessions, and other obligations. By adhering to your schedule as closely as possible, you can optimize your time management skills and ensure that you allocate sufficient time to both work and school.

Manage Your Time Effectively

To make the most of your time, utilize effective time management techniques. Utilize tools like timers, calendars, and reminders to help you stay organized and maintain focus. Avoid the temptation to multitask, as it can lead to reduced productivity and increased distractions. Instead, focus on one task at a time, completing it efficiently before moving on to the next.

Take Care of Yourself

Self-care is an essential component of maintaining a healthy work-school balance. Prioritize physical activity, healthy eating, and sufficient rest. By taking care of your well-being, you’ll maintain higher energy levels, enabling you to tackle your responsibilities with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Try out one of these apps to boost your self-care.

Communicate With Your Employer

Open and honest communication with your employer about your school schedule is key to achieving a harmonious work-school balance. Keep your employer informed about any conflicts that may arise due to your academic commitments. They may be willing to offer flexible scheduling options or alternative arrangements that can help accommodate your responsibilities.

Achieving a healthy work-school balance is no easy feat, but armed with these five essential tips, you can confidently navigate the challenges that come with juggling these responsibilities. By prioritizing tasks, creating a schedule, managing time effectively, taking care of yourself, and communicating with your employer, you’ll be well on your way to successfully balancing work and school.

Remember, you’re not alone—millions of students face similar challenges, and with determination and perseverance, you can overcome them and thrive in both spheres of your life.

Recommendations for Stretching Your Grocery Budget

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The financial strain of college life often leaves students searching for ways to expand their grocery budget and alleviate the notorious “ramen diet.” If you’re looking to save money and make the most of your resources, these practical recommendations will help you stretch your budget without sacrificing your nutritional needs or breaking the bank.

Create a Budget

Crafting a detailed budget is a crucial step in gaining control over your finances. By tracking your expenses and income, you’ll gain a clear understanding of where your money is going and identify areas where adjustments can be made. Stick to your budget religiously, and you’ll find yourself saving more money each month. Here are some of the best budgeting apps! 

Get a Part-Time Job

Securing a part-time job while in college not only provides additional income but also offers valuable work experience and boosts your resume. Explore on-campus or off-campus job opportunities that align with your schedule and interests. The extra income earned can go a long way in expanding your grocery budget.

Look for Scholarships and Financial Aid

Maximize your financial resources by exploring scholarships and financial aid options available through your college or university. Many institutions offer grants, scholarships, and other forms of aid to assist students with tuition fees and other expenses. Research and apply for these opportunities to help lighten your financial burden. Federal Student Aid is a great resource!  

Be Mindful of Expenses

Practicing mindfulness when it comes to spending is essential for students on a tight budget. Evaluate your expenses critically and identify areas where you can cut back. Avoid unnecessary spending on items such as dining out, expensive clothing, and the latest technology. By curbing these expenses, you’ll free up more funds for your grocery budget.

Sell Items You Don’t Need

Take a look around your living space and identify items that are no longer useful or needed. These items can be sold online through platforms like eBay or Craigslist, or you can organize a garage sale to generate extra income. Not only will you declutter your space, but you’ll also add a financial boost to your grocery budget.

 

While the financial challenges of college life may seem overwhelming, implementing these practical recommendations will empower you to expand your grocery budget and enhance your overall financial well-being. By creating a budget, seeking part-time employment, exploring scholarships, being mindful of expenses, and selling unnecessary items, you’ll take significant steps toward financial stability and a healthier, more varied diet.

Remember, building the habit of saving money takes time and commitment, but the long-term benefits are well worth the effort. Review and adjust your budget regularly to ensure you’re making the most of your financial resources.

We understand the demands of college life. You’ve got this!

Tricks to Mastering College Life

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The demands of applying to programs, writing essays, and building a well-rounded resume can sometimes lead to overwhelming stress. To help you navigate through the semester successfully, we’ve compiled a list of proven tips that will not only boost your academic performance but also enhance your overall well-being. Let’s dive in!

Prioritize and Make a Schedule

To conquer the flurry of responsibilities in college, effective time management is key. Start by creating a comprehensive schedule that accounts for classes, study sessions, and extracurricular commitments. 

Google Calendar is a great start or there are a plethora of other apps and resources for scheduling. Not feeling the digital vibe? Go old-school and embrace the charm of a physical planner. The key here is to choose what feels right for you. 

Break down larger projects into smaller, manageable tasks and assign specific deadlines to each. By organizing your time, you’ll stay focused, meet deadlines, and reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Take Breaks and Practice Self-care

Amidst the academic hustle, it’s crucial to prioritize self-care and take regular breaks. Engage in activities that help you relax and recharge, such as exercise, meditation, or pursuing hobbies. You might be blown away with how impactful a 15 minute walk can be to improve your motivation and energy. 

These breaks will rejuvenate your mind, enhance productivity, and prevent burnout. Remember, your well-being is just as important as your academic pursuits. It may be easy to let your physical health slip. It is not worth it! 

Join a Club or Organization

College offers a vibrant community with diverse clubs and organizations. Take advantage of these opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals who share your interests. 

Joining a club or organization not only provides a sense of belonging but also offers avenues for personal growth, leadership development, and valuable networking. Explore different options and find your tribe!

Seek Help When Needed

College presents its fair share of challenges, both academic and personal. Instead of struggling in silence, remember that there’s a support network available to you. Reach out to professors, teaching assistants, or academic tutors when you need clarification or guidance with coursework. 

Additionally, most colleges provide counseling services where professionals can offer support for managing stress, mental health concerns, or personal issues. Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Learn to Say No

With a plethora of opportunities at your fingertips, it’s easy to spread yourself too thin. Learning to say no is crucial for maintaining balance and focusing on what truly matters to you. 

Evaluate each opportunity based on your priorities and passions. It’s better to invest your time and energy in a few meaningful activities rather than stretching yourself too thin. Embrace the power of selective commitment.

 

College life may be filled with pressure, but by implementing these tips, you can excel academically while nurturing your overall well-being. Prioritize your tasks, schedule your time wisely, and don’t forget to take breaks and care for yourself. Engage with the college community through clubs and organizations, and remember that seeking help is a sign of strength. Finally, be mindful of your commitments and learn to say no to maintain a healthy balance. Embrace these strategies, and you’ll navigate college with confidence, resilience, and success. Here’s to a rewarding and fulfilling college experience!

The Daily Universe- BYU alumnus, former student athlete creates app to help connect students with tutors

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A version of this article was originally published on The Daily Universe.

CJ Lee, a BYU alumnus and former student golf athlete, is working to help students find new ways to connect with tutors through his app Stutor.

Stutor aims to help students with homework or study help during all hours of the day, so they can get help when it is most convenient for them. Additionally, it is an opportunity for college students to make money easily by monetizing the knowledge they gained during college, according to Lee.

“Stutor is a peer-to-peer platform where we connect students to students at every university. We are like the Uber of tutoring,” Lee said.

Students and tutors can pre-register for Stutor on the app’s website before its release. The platform aims to launch at the beginning of March.

The idea behind Stutor was born when Lee was a junior at BYU and found himself behind on his coursework. He had a hard time finding help and as a full-time golfer for BYU, he missed TA and lab hours. He resorted to texting multiple friends for help, which ended up costing him more time.

“So, who is it that you can lean on during those times? It is not your professor. It is not your TA. It is other students,” Lee said.

When Lee was in college, he wondered why there was such a struggle for students when there are smartphones that have the “capability to do anything.”

Lee began to work on his app during the summer of 2021. He saw the advantages of providing services through smart phones.

“You are seeing this trend right now in tech where a lot of apps are hosting other apps like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb — where people are taking their existing positions and monetizing it,” Lee said.

He acknowledged college students are in need of money and most of them do not have homes or cars to make money from with the aforementioned apps.

“What do we all have? Education and knowledge. Knowledge that we have paid thousands of dollars for, so we should start to monetize,” Lee said.

Lee believes students are willing to be TAs and tutors because they want to use their knowledge to help others and get paid.

“We are going to teach kids how to make money now, using what they have paid thousands of dollars for,” he said.

John Blatter, a BYU marketing student and former tutor, wished he had something like this before.

“This will provide the much-needed flexibility that students need for employment. I’ve been a tutor before and have been tutored and I so wish I had this. I think this is such a great program and I am excited to see it benefit both tutors and those that are tutored,” Blatter said.

BYU Students doing homework in Wilkinson Student Center. Students gather here to eat and study. (Anna LaTour)

Any student can register on the platform to be a tutor, as long as they have a B average or higher in the specific course they want to help teach. Stutor will verify the student with the university and after that, the student-tutor can set their hours and rates.

On the other hand, if a student looking for help uses the app, it will ping all of the student tutors eligible to teach that class.

“It is a 24/7 marketplace for help,” Lee said.

Sydney Telford, a BYU pre-business student, is one of the first pre-registered students for Stutor.

“It’s hard when you need immediate help on something and can’t find help. I’m excited that I can have quality tutors available to help me whenever I need it,” she said.

Lee knows there are other websites and platforms like Chegg and Thumbtack that can help students find experts, but he believes Stutor is the better option for students because other students who have taken the same courses know how to help best.

Additionally, Lee pointed out the cost for help can be kept down with students helping each other, compared to the cost of services from professionals.

“What is the best and efficient way to help a student? It is someone who has taken that … specific class,” Lee said.

TechBuzz- Stutor launching 24/7 EdTech Tutoring Platform for College Students

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A version of this article was first published on Techbuzz.

Stutor, a Lehi, Utah-based 24/7 tutoring marketplace, is launching its app for students initially at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University in November.

College students can use the app to find on-campus student tutors who have passed the specific class they’re studying for. And students can connect with these tutors at any time, even if they’re cramming for a test at 1:00 a.m.

“So if a student says, ‘Hey, I need help today with Finance 201 from Professor Larson from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m.’ It pings and notifies every single tutor eligible to teach that class, so it’s kind of an instantaneous help model,” Stutor cofounder C.J. Lee told TechBuzz.

Students who want to tutor go into the app, list the classes they’ve taken and passed, and submit the list for verification. Once Stutor verifies the list with the university, that person can become a tutor and make money helping teach things they already know.

The idea for Stutor came to Lee because of his time as a student athlete. He was recruited for BYU’s golf team right out of high school. But like many student athletes, he was always missing school to compete. He recalls being gone anywhere from 12 to 14 weekends throughout the school year and found himself struggling to keep up.

“I felt like, why should I be penalized for playing my sport?” he said.



Lee felt like he couldn’t be the only student athlete feeling this way. He started talking to other student athletes and found that most of them were in the same situation — their busy schedules kept them from doing as well in their classes.

Students in general tend to have a packed, unpredictable schedules, he explained. It can be hard to find time to go to lab hours or office hours for their TAs and professors. And when it’s late at night and there’s a test in the morning, it’s impossible to find professional help. Students often turn to other students for casual tutoring.

And if your friends can’t help you, they ask their friends, and so on—creating a tutoring network, Lee explained. His idea was to centralize that network and streamline the process for connecting with it.

Tutoring, he pointed out, has been around since students studied under philosophers in Ancient Greece. And even though it was fairly easy to find a university tutor or a local tutor, it usually took days to set up an appointment, and even then it wasn’t usually someone around his age who had taken the exact class.

He asked himself, with the technology available now, why is it so difficult to find instantaneous tutoring help that caters specifically to the student’s need?

“We just like to say we’re revolutionizing and bringing tutoring to the twenty-first century,” he said. “Every industry thrives in the modern day because they adapt to the current generation. Why is it that the world of academia is always one of the last?”

Even the most organized student might realize that they need help with a specific problem set or assignment immediately, even if it’s 1:00 a.m. And there’s probably another college student who is awake and available to help, if they can just be connected.

In those cases, a three-day waiting period just won’t cut it.

“If you wait that long, then you may have failed that exam, or may have failed that assignment,” Lee said.

Once he got the idea for a network that would digitally connect students with peer tutors, he decided to see if anything like it already existed. To his surprise, it didn’t.

He believes the reason this doesn’t exist yet stems from the unchanging, rigid nature of academia. He added that there’s also a stigma that you have to be a brilliant scholar to help tutor someone.

In his opinion, tutors don’t have to be the top student in the class or have a 4.0 GPA. Lee thinks the most efficient way to tutor a college student is to connect them with a college student who has been in their shoes, in the same class at the same university.

Based on Lee’s market research and personal experience, most students don’t care if you aced the class. They care that their tutors have been in the class and can walk them through it. Getting a B in the class is good enough to tutor for Stutor.



After Lee graduated, he went on to play professional golf until 2020. Then he returned home and the pandemic shut downs began. For the next several months of lockdowns, he decided to pursue the idea and reached out to his friends who were developers. They all wanted payment upfront or were busy.

In early 2021, he sat down at a bakery with Joel Joseph. Overall, he just felt good about Joseph even though he was nervous to hear yet another no. Lee laid out the situation for Joseph. Joseph told Lee that he was in. The duo sent out a survey of a thousand students from various universities. The survey explained the app and asked if the students would want to download it. Almost all (99.8%) of respondents said they were interested in the app and would download it. “And so I said, you know what, Joel? That is all the proof I need. Let’s get going,” Lee said.

Then he met Tyler Crawford, who has sold four companies with successful exits. Crawford seemed interested to help but wasn’t ready to step down from his company just yet. Crawford traveled to Boston to tour Harvard and MIT campuses with his daughter who was checking out colleges. He saw bulletin boards full of tutoring ads with tear-off bits of paper at the bottom with the tutor’s contact information. “That’s crazy that Harvard and MIT—arguably the two most thought-leading schools in the world—are still practicing the paper tear off method,” said Crawford.

Crawford accepted the role of cofounder and stepped down from his company. “CJ as a founder and person in general and Stutor as a company were both so exciting and refreshing to me,” Crawford told TechBuzz. “CJ is humble, but exceptional at the same time and the idea of Stutor immediately resonated with me. I am so excited to be involved and working alongside CJ to bring Stutor’s mission to life. Stay tuned, this is going to be one fun rocket ride!”

The team started developing the app in January of this year and “have gone very far, very fast,” Lee said. The app is built for four groups: regular students, student athletes, student tutors, athletic administrators and parents. For the regular student body, the app is free to download and is pay as you go. Stutor takes a miniscule transactional fee relative to other Peer-to-Peer platforms.

The student athlete portal has a flat-rate premium membership that allows for many features which include recorded video sessions when the athlete receives a session. Athletic administrators can receive the video recordings, metrics and ratings to see how the tutoring sessions are going for their athletes. Students with a busy schedule who need a side gig can put the spread out three to four hours they’re free as their availability.

“We take care of all their scheduling, we fill their pipeline with tutors, and we create this instantaneous help for a tutor,” he said. “We’ll teach them how to run what is essentially their own little business.”

Parents also have a portal to access metrics and drop money directly into the student account so it can’t be used for anything else.

Once the app launches for BYU and UVU students in November, the team hopes to dial in the process and then create a centralized tutoring network at every university. Lee is excited they already have a lot of universities lined up nationwide. Eventually Lee hopes to connect student K–12 to tutors. He hopes to connect college students to tutor high schoolers and help them with ACT prep, as well as to connect graduate students to undergrads in their field.

“Eventually, we know this thing is going to explode pretty quickly,” said Lee.